The Birthday of the World is a collection of short fiction by Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...

, and first published in March, 2002 by HarperCollins

HarperCollins

HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...

. All of the stories except "Paradises Lost" were previously published individually elsewhere.

The collection was also published in London by Gollancz

Gollancz

Gollancz often refers to the British publishing house Victor Gollancz Ltd.Gollancz, a family name originating from the Polish town Gołańcz , is mainly known as the name of a prominent British Jewish family, including:* Sir Hermann Gollancz , rabbi* Sir Israel Gollancz , scholar of...

, an imprint of the Orion Group, in 2003 with ISBN 0-575-07479-5. A softcover edition was published by Perennial

Harper Perennial

Harper Perennial is a paperback imprint of the publishing house HarperCollins Publishers. Harper Perennial has divisions located in New York, London, Toronto, and Sydney. The imprint is descended from the Perennial Library imprint founded by Harper & Row in 1964...

 in 2003 with ISBN 0-06-050906-6.

Contents

• Foreword
• "Coming of Age in Karhide" - 1995 in New Legends ed. G. Bear. Takes place on Gethen the planet of The Left Hand of Darkness
  The Left Hand of Darkness
  The Left Hand of Darkness is a 1969 science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin. It is part of the Hainish Cycle, a series of books by Le Guin all set in the fictional Hainish universe....
  
  which is part of the Ekumen
  Ekumen
  The Hainish Cycle consists of a number of science fiction novels and stories of Ursula K. Le Guin. Most of them are not set on the planet Hain, but have it as a distant background...
  
  .

A young Karhidian loses "her" virginity during "her" first phase of coming into heat, called a "kemmer". The gender is in quotations because most Gethenians only become female or male during kemmer and then return to their neutral/hermaphroditic state.

• "The Matter of Seggri" - Spring 1994 in Crank!. Takes place on Seggri of the Ekumen
  Ekumen
  The Hainish Cycle consists of a number of science fiction novels and stories of Ursula K. Le Guin. Most of them are not set on the planet Hain, but have it as a distant background...
  
  .

The discovery, exploration, and ultimate alteration of a planet characterised by extreme gender imbalance and segregation.

• "Unchosen Love" - Fall 1994 in Amazing Stories. Takes place on O of the Ekumen
  Ekumen
  The Hainish Cycle consists of a number of science fiction novels and stories of Ursula K. Le Guin. Most of them are not set on the planet Hain, but have it as a distant background...
  
   which is the same planet as the title story of A Fisherman of the Inland Sea
  A Fisherman of the Inland Sea
  A Fisherman of the Inland Sea is a 1994 collection of short stories and novellas by Ursula K. Le Guin. The collection was second in the 1995 Locus Award poll in the collection category.-Contents:The stories in the collection are:...
  
  . Society there is built around the sedoretu - a marriage involving four people.

About a meek man and meek woman, who are in relationships with strong-willed man and woman respectively. The meek find solace in each other's company, an unexpected relationship catalyzed by mysterious encounters.

• "Mountain Ways" - August 1996 in Asimov's Science Fiction. Also on O.

Two women who are in love, but who cannot find suitable partners to establish a sedoretu, decide to deceive the other parties to a marriage by disguising one of the women as a man. Complex and beautiful story.

• "Solitude" - December 1994 in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Takes place on Eleven-Soro on the fringes of the Ekumen. Society has fragmented - men and women live apart, and adult women do not even enter each others houses. The story is told by the daughter of a mobile of the Ekumen who grows up in this society.
• "Old Music and the Slave Women" - 1999 in Far Horizons ed. R. Silverberg. Another story in the same dual-planet system of Werel and Yeowe as Four Ways to Forgiveness
  Four Ways to Forgiveness
  Four Ways to Forgiveness is a collection of four short stories or novellas by Ursula K. Le Guin. All four stories are set in the future and deal with the planets Yeowe and Werel, both members of the Ekumen, a collective of planets used by Le Guin as part of the background for many novels and short...
  
  of the Ekumen.
• "The Birthday of the World" - June 2000 in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. May or may not be of the Ekumen. The story depicts a society where the hereditary rulers are "God" - and how the society is disrupted from inside and outside.
• "Paradises Lost" - First publication. Not of the Ekumen. A story of a group of humans undertaking a journey to a distant planet to discover the possibilities of habitability. The journey takes several generations, and is told from the perspective of people that have grown up aboard the ship and its unique society.